Thanks and Impressions

New Yorker finds no Cult of Ideology in Peakian group,  but much of charm and character
I hope my putting up a post will not be too much,  but I wanted to give my thanks and some impressions.  I have just gotten back from NY airport and it is late but wanted to get it out of the way.  I want to thank Martin Huxter and Anthony Peake and Karl LeMarcs most of all,  as well as all whom I had the high  honor of meeting.  It is bittersweet,  as one realizes that emails and internet  leave out so much that is essential,  and that the charmed circle in Liverpool is closed to some of us geographically,  and we fall further out of sync with the life of the Itladian community.  My time in London and Liverpool brought the painful awareness that living online is not a good thing.

I spent Friday night at the Park Plaza in London,  and met Martin there.  This was the beginning of a realization:  I had related to him online for so long as a sort of "lost boy".  So when he made his appearance,  it was a shock to see the person.   When he appeared in the hotel lobby,  I was startled by his height,  his build,  his beautiful jacket and shoes.  And moreso by his posh London accent.  He is self possessed and charming.  He can speak on many topics,  and with substance and ideological reference.    He is far more polished and impressive than I had thought him to be.  His manners were elegant in the posh bar,  and with the bartender,  and I was proud to be seen with him.  He is a young man who is integrated and lively.  He has impressive eyes,  and a coy giggle which was alarming in its power to charm.  His gait is confident and masculine.   He seemed for all the world an educated London aristocrat.  When I took his arm to stroll outside to smoke,  I thought of Morrisey's song,  "Hand in Glove",  with the line,  "just stay on my arm,  you little charmer."  For that is what he is.  And I had related to him all wrong in emails,  and felt a sense of shame for having underestimated him. And horror at the falseness of online relating.   The film critic ought to have been an actor.  To anyone who has read Martin's fine writing,  I highly recommend meeting him.   If ,  that is,  you can stand his youthful charm and intelligence:   Quite a heady brew. 
My next shock came with LeMarcs.  I know now that Tony's idea of time dilation is a reality:  time slowed and stopped and seemed to expand,  in my first moments of beholding  him.  I had actually wanted to be disappointed;   prayed,   in fact,  to be disenchanted,   but it was not to be.  There was the same electric charge in the air that had surrounded Barack Obama;  it was palpable.  His phycical bearing brought at once to mind what Nietzsche spoke of as  "that miracle,  when nature has placed the head of a genius on the body of a ruffian,  so that the result is a Nero,  a Caligula ,  to be worshipped. "  It is as if some transcendent being has descended into solid flesh,  without fully having the ability to grasp his condition.  His very footstep is solid and Nero-like.  He is a king,  and I  can say no more;  do no more,  except to phone my brilliant New York therapist,  who already has assured me that there is hope;  that he has  plans for  a cognitive method to "shake those Brits out of your life for good."  . . . Tony is all I knew him to be:  beautiful,  refined, intelligent  modest,  with a lovely voice.  I had long wondered how  a man with such impossibly gorgeous features could possibly find a  fit wife,  and the thought that she would be as beautiful as he had never occurred to me (  I don't know why,  but it hadn't).  She is a female Anthony Peake,  with her own beautiful eyes and gorgeous mouth to match her husband's.  It was beautiful to see them together.  Di and I agreed that Penny is a perect English rose.  . . Liverpool itself,  like a Britsh hetero brother of the gay and waywayd  American Provincetown:  such an aura of Ptown surrounded it at night;  the same mix of elegance and roughness and water and boats.  In itself,  like a dream,  and almost a portent. . . And such vivid impressions I had of Jo,  who was adorable,  and Di,  who seemed like my long-lost self,  and Dr. Alan Roberts ( I hope I have not got his name backwards)  and Groundhog,  and Rich,  and Dorje.  But I feel I cannot continue on.  The three I loved first and longest:  Tony,  Karl and Martin,  were human,  but splendidly human;  I found no flaw,  only charm ,  charm.  and more charm.  And something more. . . And as I said,  it is bittersweet,  as the realization hits,  that the online was always but a shadow's shadow,  and cannot continue on in the same way,  now that the reality has overtaken it.  I am reminded of the life I had before my husband died,  when people were solid and things were real;  and one must sigh and wonder how much one can invest further in that beautiful circle which is fast closing us out , -  we who live in the farthest reaches  -   with no intention or awareness  of having done so.    But again,  my deepest thanks to all.